VirginWorlds MMORPG NewsHost: BrentVirginWorlds is a weekly news podcast covering Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Eve Online, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online and many many more. The VirginWorlds MMORPG Podcast is the flagship podcast of the VirginWorlds MMO Podcast Collective found at http://www.virginworlds.com

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Topics this week: 9 Dragons weapons Age of Conan PvP Prognostication of the Week (new segment) Archlord and the importance of the game's premise Auto Assault's 2nd update Big Sceen Entertainment is making an MMO Cabal Online Cryptic Studio is growing Darkfall and orc heads DDO's progress and future The end of Endless Saga Scientific Proof of the MMOs that make people happiest EverQuest 1 and 2 expansions FFXI banning botters Fury's MMO categorization God's and Heroes emotions Lineage II's next release Second Life Movies Shadowbane and Stray Bullet news SOE Fan Faire 2007 Vanguard beta 3 and Death World of Warcraft Contest Winner Listener mail What we're playing http://www.virginworlds.com/mobile/ Where is your guild drama?

VirginWorlds is a weekly news podcast covering Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Eve Online, Vanguard, and many many more. The main site can be found at http://www.VirginWorlds.com

The Conan PvP maps from what you described might not work. If it is anything like CoH base raid then it will fail. CoH PvP is not a good system to copy from. There is a big difference between a free game with advertising and a pay one. If this is a pay for play game with advertising, this game will fail.

If the game has been developed in Asia then it is most likely will be a grind fest. Asian game developer hasn’t evolved enough to understand that grind is not fun. Archlord game will fail in the US market.

Auto Assault is dead, nothing going to change their fate. Players expected something else from what the developer gave them. There was a disconnected between the player that was going to play this game and the developers.

First six month is very important for MMOG. If they can’t reach a critical mass within that period they probably won’t reach it in the game lifecycle. There are exceptions to this rule but it holds true for the most part.

Asian MMOG makes their money in the secondary market by selling items and gold. They figure rightly so that the secondary market is where all the money will be in the future. The majority of game in Asia that is beta is actually finish product. AA fails not because it was in beta for a long time. AA fails because the game design was bad. Huge amount of grind, missions was poorly design, maps was poorly design, overall the game should not release as it is. AA was developed by armatures and it shows. Gamers will always pay to play good game. They will not pay to play bad games like AA.

Cryptic is looking for people to do Marvel MMOG of all things. Marvel sued them and now Marvel wants them to do their MMOG. Go figure. CoH is dead. It is like playing a free Korean MMOG. The sad thing about it; the customer pays to play a grind game. What Cryptic needs the most is good game designers. Good games are design by good game designers. Bad games are design by good programmers.

'Comments 2' by jdunSubmitted on 2006-08-02 15:48:39 CSTDDO expand to Asia because Asia is the best market for MMOG. China is a huge market that no company can ignore. The success of WoW in Asia proved more then ever that Western MMOG can be successful. Asians is starting to realize that grinding doesn’t mean fun.

I am sure with two billions people in China there are some people that don’t like PvP and prefer PvE. With that said, DDO is a dead game. With NWN 2 coming out soon and DDO need a way to increase their market share fast. NWN 2 will kill DDO make no mistake about it. BTW Korean is the PvP market; I don’t know if Chinese are into PvP. There is a difference between Korean and Chinese.

DDO didn’t have that much of a content to start out with at launch. Even with the added contents it still not enough for people to come in.

SOE been friendly to their customers? Tell that to SWG people. Wonder how much hate mail you going to get from anti SOE players.

Like most MMOG in Asia, Lineage II is getting killed by WoW. Asians is finding out grind is evil and because of that NCSoft is in trouble. All their MMOG is in a declined and the stock is one third of what it is this year I believe.

Auto Assault is dead: It does sort of look that way. It is too bad when a group of people put so much into a game and this happens.

First six month is very important for MMOG: This is almost always the case, but Eve Online has proved to be the exception.

Asian MMOG makes their money in the secondary market: So you're saying that the game companies themselves make money due to farmers? I don't follow that logic at all. Also, I don't think you're being fair to Auto Assault. The game clearly has some flaws, but honestly I can't put my finger on the single point that has caused them to turn such low numbers. It is a mystery to me. This doesn't bode well for games like Huxley and Tabula Rasa, which appear to have similar design elements.

Cryptic is looking for people to do Marvel MMOG: i hand't heard this. Where did you find that info? If it is true, it is hilarious.

DDO expand to Asia because Asia is the best market for MMOG: I completely disagree. I think the asian market will despise DDO.

SOE and SWG hate: I haven't received any complaints regarding my comments on SWG or my occasional pro-SOE comments. Honestly, they've impressed me lately. They seem to be figuring it out in the face of the adversity they've encounted over the last two years.

Lineage II is getting killed by WoW: Just barely and bear in mind that WoW is the fancy new thing in Asia while Lineage is the old hat. This is how things go.

'I was [Rob]bed!' by NarbaSubmitted on 2006-08-03 12:10:46 CSTI demand a recount!...err...flip of the coin :)

Hopefully one of our beta applications will go through and we can get a better look at Spellborn.

Thanks B&B for another great show.

'Robbed' by BrentSubmitted on 2006-08-04 08:44:51 CSTThat was a hard question. I don't get that many responses to the quiz. Usually less than 7, but that one was hard, even people who wanted to answer probably didn't figure it out. Good luck to you on the next one Rob.

'Worship emote' by MattSubmitted on 2006-08-04 12:50:14 CSTActually, I'm pretty sure that "worship" emote that you're looking for exists in City of Heroes/Villains. It's basically exactly as you described it, although I think the command is /praise.

'Yes!' by BrentSubmitted on 2006-08-04 17:51:56 CSTMatt,

Awesome. It has been awhile since I've spent time in CoH, but my CoV box just arrived, so you can be sure I'll be trying that. Thanks for the tip.

'Worship emote' by batavnerSubmitted on 2006-08-13 20:46:33 CSTThe Worship emote still exists on SWG...though it seems to have changed a bit from the pre-CU days.